1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications and, more particularly, to pre-connection telecommunication authentication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Business interconnectivity demands have resulted in important business information being placed within networked resources. Consequently, security mechanisms have been developed and utilized to prevent unauthorized data access while assuring access can be granted to authorized users. Conventional security mechanisms attempt to prevent hostile system penetrations after a communication link has been established between a receiving or called computing device and an originating or calling computing device. Although unauthorized users may be prevented from accessing system resources, unauthorized users can be granted the opportunity to attack or “hack” into restricted areas using the established communication link.
Another situation where switch-level inbound call restrictions can be beneficial involves telephony privacy. Many home telephone owners, for example, can suffer from persistent, undesired telephone calls, such as the calls made by telemarketing companies. To many, such forced contacts and solicitations can be extremely annoying. Despite the annoyance, many providers of telephony services fail to provide inbound call screening mechanisms to customers. Instead, customers desiring a level of privacy have often been forced to purchase customer premise equipment (CPE) specifically designed to block or monitor calls. Such equipment can be expensive to purchase and can require substantial setup expenditures.